Solid State Blind Test Session

Solid State Blind Test Session

It was a nice day, a little bit rainy at the morning. I went to Bintaro (Mr. Didik home) to enjoy a Solid State Blind Test session. After around 1.5 hours traffic, finally I arrived there.

We used equipments as follow:

NAD C542 CD Player and Aico top loading DVD Player (with External DAC)

Aikido 6CG7/6072 Pre-amp

DIY 3-way speaker (Woofer PL26, Mid P17, Tweeter XT25TG)

The contenders (first session)

Unknown from Bandung (Mr. David SKP)

LM3886 (Mr. Ado Bekasi)

LM1875 Balanced (Mr. Ara)

LM1875 Buffer 12SL7 (Mr. Budiarto W)

The contenders (second session):

Lucky13 LM3886 (Mr. Dino Ary)

LM3876 Buffer Nelson Pass (Mr. Dino Ary)

MOSFET IRF (Mr. Ado Bekasi)

MOSFET MP50Di (Mr. Didik WA)

LM1875 Stasiun Bekasi (Pak Praka N)

LM1875 Sentul (Pak Aip N Sentul)

It was a long sesssion. Although the session was ended at around 17:00, we still continued with some extra session, like loudspeakers and Pre-amp testing. We finally ended the session at 21:00.

Here is some photos. Enjoy!

“Filled the tank” before we started the session.

Balanced Gainclone, the winner. Combined with Sony linestage. Forward and quite sweet vocals. Need to make it laid back a little bit, IMO.

The systems. Aikido Pre-amp on the left, and Aico DVD Player with external DAC on the right (above Denon turntable).

LM1875 Gainclone, on the 4th position. Not bad, since this Gainclone only equipped with Nichicon capacitors and MBM coupling capacitors. You also can see CAT cable network used on this kit.

MOSFET on action. Quite hot, around 2.2A per channel. You also could see Nichicon PIO capacitors combined with Marcon capacitors. Also Class A linestage on the DOZ PCB. This kit won 3rd position.

Tripath could be a good competitors for Gainclone. This battery powered amplifier could shake the Gainclone and MOSFET domination by positioned itself on 2th position. Very clean sound, perhaps because of the battery powered system. But on some part, it might sound too clean, less harmonic, and not too punchy low.

Complete system setup. The speakers, DVD Player with External DAC, Pre-Amp, and some tested Amplifier.